How To Improve Your Email Marketing Open Rate!

So you have a list. But your open rate could be better. It doesn’t matter how large or small your list is – size simply doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not people are actually reading what you send them! If they don’t open them, they can’t read them.

The average open rate will vary, depending on the source. But if you look at industry averages, you can get a better idea about how your open rate measures up. Here are some stats from Constant Contact, MailChimp, HubSpot, and an article from PC Magazine.

If your open rate isn’t as good as you’d like, or you’ve got a high number of people on your list who haven’t opened one of your emails in a while, you can do a couple of things. (Other than making sure you’re providing great content of course!)

Find out if your email marketing platform will let you resend an email only to those who did not open it the first time. You might try doing this several days after you send the first one. If it works and you get additional opens, you might consider doing this on a regular or semi-regular basis. I did this for a client in Constant Contact yesterday. There were 29 additional opens, bringing their open rate up to 38%. Not bad at all!

Run a re-engagement campaign. A re-engagement campaign targets those who haven’t opened any of your emails for an extended period of time. Run a report and filter your list to show everyone who has not opened the last 5 or 10 campaigns you’ve sent. This number will vary depending on the content you send, and its frequency. Not all email platforms will do this, but many do (Infusionsoft, MailChimp, and Constant Contact do). Then send a special email out to them with an attention-grabbing headline and see if you get a response. Add a special offer or something to the email for those who do open the email, and find out what you can do to get them back as a regular subscriber. If they don’t respond, then they probably aren’t interested in anything you offer, and therefore not your ideal client. Remove them! Removing stale contacts will give you a healthier list and improve your open rates.

As I said, the size of your list doesn’t matter. What matters, is whether or not your emails are being opened and read. Is your list a healthy list?

What is your open rate? How does it compare with your industry? What can you do (or have you done) to improve it?

In business since 1991, Terry Green is the founder/CEO/President of BizEase Support Solutions, an American-based, online marketing support company comprised of a team of talented professionals from around North America. BizEase excels at providing speakers and business coaches worldwide with seamless online marketing solutions, from setting up shopping carts and editing video, to writing blog posts and managing Social Media and PR campaigns. BizEase clients (who span five continents) take great joy in allowing the BizEase team to take care of the details so they can get back to doing what they do best! Click here to get our weekly tips ezine delivered to your inbox every Friday, with tips on plugins, apps, and tools to make you more productive today!